UNITED STATES' WHEAT-GROWING CAPACITY. 147 



" To arrest this impending danger it has been proposed that an 

 amount of 64,000,000 bushels of wheat should be purchased by the 

 state and stored in national granaries, not to be opened except to 

 remedy deterioration of grain, or in view of national disaster ren- 

 dering starvation imminent. This 64,000,000 bushels would add 

 another fourteen weeks' life to the population." 



After dealing with the fact that while it might be possible for 

 the United Kingdom to supply itself with its own wheat at an aver- 

 age of twenty-nine and a half bushels to the acre, he goes on to say 

 that this would require thirteen thousand square miles of British 

 territory, increasing at the rate of one hundred square miles per 

 annum; but he says it would be clearly impossible to assign so large 

 a proportion of the area of the United Kingdom to a single crop with- 

 out suffering in other matters, adding: 



" In any case, owing to our cold, damp climate and capricious 

 weather, the wheat crop is hazardous, and for the present our annual 

 deficit of 180,000,000 bushels must be imported. A permanently 

 higher price for wheat is, I fear, a calamity that ere long must be 

 faced." 



I can imagine with what a relish the Royal Commission on the 

 Depression of Agriculture would have received this prophecy of a 

 permanently higher price for wheat. Sir William Crookes goes on 

 to say: 



" Wheat is the most sustaining food grain of the great Caucasian 

 race, which includes the peoples of Europe, United States, British 

 America, the white inhabitants of South Africa, Australasia, parts 

 of South America, and the white population of the European 

 colonies." 



He then points out how rapidly the consumers of wheat have in- 

 creased, yet failing to attribute this increase in part to the rapid 

 reduction in the cost. He says: 



" In 1871 the bread-eaters of the world numbered 371,000,000; 

 in 1881, 416,000,000; in 1891, 472,600,000; and at the present 

 + ime they number 516,500,000. The augmentation of the world's 

 bread-eating population in a geometrical ratio is evidenced by the 

 fact that the yearly aggregates grow progressively larger. ... To 

 supply 516,500,000 bread-eaters, if each bread-eating unit is to have 

 his usual ration, will require a total of 2,324,000,000 bushels for seed 

 and food. According to the best authorities, the total supplies from 

 the 1897-'98 harvest are 1,921,000,000." 



It will be observed that while the English average consumption 

 is said to be six bushels, the average employed in this computation 

 is four and a half bushels per head. He then remarks upon the 

 large harvests for seven years, saying : 



